


We are all in the gutter, but it doesn’t change who we are

by mountland



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), LGBTQ Character, M/M, Queer Themes, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transgender, gender euphoria, idiots falling in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21608185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountland/pseuds/mountland
Summary: A selection of moments through the past 6,000 years as Aziraphale and Crowley work out who they are, and who they are to each other:  gay/queer trans men who are very much in love.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Becoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ferntree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferntree/gifts), [elegantidler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantidler/gifts), [irisbleufic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/gifts).



> This fic is inspired by elegantidler's and irisbleufic's meta-analysis of reading Crowley and Aziraphale's experiences with their bodies and gender as fitting a trans narrative - I wanted to explore this further.
> 
> The first few chapters stick mainly to the canon of the miniseries, then the fic goes off on its own path tying them into moments of significance in European queer history, as well as trying to incorporate book!Aziraphale & book!crowley's characterization into this interpretation of our favourite angel and demon.

**Soho - 2019 AD**

“So how did you two meet?” is always a tricky question to navigate at parties for many couples. This is especially tricky when you are a demon and an angel, and even more so if the one who has been asked is the one of the two who is not supposed to lie or mislead humans. Aziraphale took a sip from his wine glass to buy him a few seconds to choose a well-rehearsed semi-truth. Crowley was enjoying seeing his angel tell a lie (even if it was just a white lie) too much to want to intervene.

“Oh at work, we were both new starts” while truthful, Aziraphale reasoned, always raised more questions than it answered, mainly: ‘what sort of job needs a bookshop keeper and... hang on what is it you actually do Crowley?’ Far too many questions.

The answer he normally settles on, that equally met their joint needs for truthfulness and mischief, with a dash of believability was “We met in a garden”. Given the company, they kept this was normally met with nods of understanding and comments varying upon the theme of “Oh THE rose garden, you don’t hear that much anymore”, or “I met my Robbie at the Dips”.[1]

His favourite answer, was Crowley’s cheeky “well for me it was love at first sight, for him it took a bit longer, didn’t notice until we were in church” while flourishing his ring finger for added drama.

Sometimes though, when the company was a drunk as this particular crowd and Aziraphale would hint at the truth: “ Well, I was on apple tree duty, and he was a wily old serpent...”

* * *

**Eden - 4004 BC**

Crawley slithered up the great wall of Eden, curious to see the outcome of its actions, and hopefully before the start of the first storm that was looming overhead with promise. Until now its actions had only had outcomes for itself, outcomes that it could never have predicted seeing as how everything that happened in these early days was happening for the first time. It was interesting to see consequences for others, answering the what-ifs that rolled around its head without putting its neck on the line. Once burnt twice shy.

Crawley halted as the top of the wall and being stood there, came into view. This figure looked similar to the human Crawley had seen up close in the garden: two legs, two arms, skin. Crawley had seen him, and the other three like him, before but only from a distance; a fiery sword attached to a being created to thwart you was one hell, or more accurately heaven, of a deterrent to sneaking a closer look.

Upon closer inspection, Crawley could now clearly see the figure looked different from Eve. The wings were one major difference obviously, but there was more than that, the shape of the body differed: a flat torso, round stomach and narrow hips; the hair on the head lay differently, further back. The face had harder lines and a lump in the throat, amongst a multitude of different cues for which Crawley had no context to decipher or grant meaning to.The being in front of Crawley fascinated it.

_What is thissss_?

_Envy? Sadnessssss?_ Crawley answered its own question. It was a peculiar sadness, a feeling of wanting to go to a home it had never been to, a home that felt unreachable.

The more it starred the more it felt an invisible pull towards the body ahead. Crawley would not quite work out if it wanted to be beside the figure, or inside its skin staring out. Perhaps both.

It had been in all a very busy day, not that there had been enough of them for Crawley to have a firm grasp on how busy a day should or shouldn’t be. Regardless, it had been too busy for Crawley to want to dwell further on these feelings, a feeling per day was more than enough, thank you not very kindly.Never one to hang back in the shadows Crawley slithered its way towards the angel’s feet with determination unsure of what its actions were to be until his own feet came to a halt next to the angels. 

“Well that went down like a lead balloon” he observed, unsure of what lead or a balloon exactly was, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the time. Hopefully, it would distract the angel from commenting on the snake beside him taking a form that mirrored the angel’s but that was uniquely his own. Sharp lines and angles replaced the sleek curves of the snake, hair stubbled under the skin around his mouth that had seconds ago been scales, while cascades of new curling hair blew in the breeze.

“Sorry, what was that?” queried the angel in front of him. Needing to have ears to hear was a relatively new feeling for both of them and neither had quite settled into it. For you see in heaven and hell you didn’t have a body, the ones they were inhabiting now were needed containers of the self for existing upon the earth, but superfluous in their respective headquarters.

“I said well that went down like a lead balloon” Crawley reiterated, his yellow eyes glinting in the sun, as true to his being as the rest of his embodiment.

“Yes “ agreed the angel fretfully, “Yes it did rather” before turning his worried head back to look out over the desert at the scene unfolding in front of them.

“Bit of an overreaction if you ask me, first offence and everything”, Crawley observed, trying to draw the warmth of the others attention back onto him, like a serpent seeks the sun hiding from the coldness of God.

The angel’s gaze returned to Crawley with apprehension written all over his face.The attention only served to further encourage Crawley:“I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway.” _It’s not half as much fun if they don’t know what they are doing_ he mentally added.

“Well, it must be bad…” The angel paused for introductions.

“Crawley” he offered the only name he had, though in this new form it felt distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

“Crawley” the angel repeated. It sounded softer in his mouth, elevated somehow. He didn’t return the favour of the introduction, jumping right back into the conversation: “Otherwise you wouldn’t have tempted them into it”.

“Oh they just said get up there and make some trouble”, it was the truth, he had just been intending to make some mischief but had ended up messing around with stakes and consequences much higher than he had originally thought; it was becoming an unfortunate pattern.

“Well, obviously you are a demon. It’s what you do” Aziraphale said firmly, quite settled on the matter.

Crawley grinned. The self-assuredness of the being in front of him was radiant, the angel as comfortably moulded to his thoughts as to his body, it seemed to fit in a way Crawley had never seen before. The other angels, granted only three of them, he had spied from afar wore their bodies like uncomfortable shoes they wished to cast off at the end of the day. He wanted to bask in the comfort the angel radiated until it seeped through into him.

Their discussion fell into a comforting rhythm of back and forth, the angel’s unquestioning nature and strict adherence to a black and white world view, bouncing back the questions that flew off of Crawley's tongue.

“Not very subtle of the almighty though? Fruit tree in the middle of the garden with a ‘don’t touch’ sign. I mean why not put it on the top of a high mountain? Or on the moon? Or you know, not at all. Makes you wonder what Gods really planning?” It stood to reason in his mind that no mortal can do something that God does not already know they will do, or not do. Therefore, God must have created Eve with the illusion of freedom, but not the reality of it, this was enough to bother him. However, it bothered him further that Eve was punished for doing the only thing she could do in the conditions given, all in all, it seemed unsporting.

“Well they were told not to touch it, as some sort of test I assume, and they failed it” the angel countered seemingly oblivious to the unfair weighting of the test.

“So why did God give them the ability to make decisions then if she wanted them to blindly follow her commands?” He pushed, why couldn’t the angel see the truth in front of him?

“That would be freedom of will” came the smugly assured answer “that’s what makes them different to us, it makes them special, it makes them free. It makes their decisions meaningful, it wouldn’t have meaning if there was no choice.”

“Of course they failed the test then” Crawley spluttered, at the monumental stupidity of the divine plan and the others unthinking belief in it: “they were given the ability to choose, but no knowledge to make the right decision. Without knowledge, it’s basically a flip of a coin, yes or no, with no knowledge of consequence or reason. It’s a system destined to fail!”

The angel mulled this over, his face looking strained at the mental gymnastics of it all: “Best not to speculate.” he settles on, “It’s all part of the great plan. It’s not for us to understand. It’s...ineffable”

“The great plans ineffable?” _No wonder it’s all already such a mess,_ he thought, _if there is no way to record what’s supposed to be happening_.

“Exactly. It is beyond understanding and incapable of being put into words.”

“Sounds like an administrative nightmare.” He liked it, the conversation that is, administrative nightmares he had yet to make up his mind on depending on whether he was the one causing them or if he was at the paperwork end. He liked that his questions were answered, perhaps not satisfactorily, or eloquently, or with any real soul searching thought. But they were responded to with answers, instead of judgement, wrath or punishment. Demons can’t be choosers, a moron of an angel is better than a smiting one any day he rationalised.

He drank in the sight of the angel in front of him, a gentleness seemed to exude from him in the same way that bouts of force emanated from the others at the other gates, as forceful in both as the flames that shot from their swords.

_Hang on a minute_ “Didn’t you have a flaming sword?”

“Uh,” guilt flashed across the angel's eyes as he stuttered “uh”.

“You did it was flaming like anything, what happened to it?” Oh, this was going to be fun, an incompetent but stickler-for-the-rules angel leaving holy weapons unattended: “Lost it already have you?”

“I gave it away” the Angel blurted out in shame.

“You what?” the joyful mischief rising within Crawley left as quickly as it had come, replaced by something all the more unfamiliar. Perhaps his appraisal of the angel as being black and white, and by the book, was not on the money; shades of grey were starting to emerge.

“I gave it away. There are vicious animals. It’s going to be cold out there. And she’s expecting already. So I said ‘here you go flaming sword. Don’t thank me. And don’t let the sun go down on you here’” the angel finally paused for breath, “I do hope I didn’t go the wrong thing. That was the best course wasn’t it?”.

_Oh you stupid sweet angel,_ Crawley thought. For all demons are supposed to think highly of themselves to the exclusion of all others, but an angel going ever so slightly rogue and giving almost as much chaos to the world as he just had was something any demon would be drawn to. Or that’s at least what he would reason later, it was after all the least embarrassing explanation.

“Oh, you’re an angel. I don’t think you can do the wrong thing” he teased.

“Oh thank you.” relief washed over the angels face, tension rolling off his body “It’s been bothering me”.

Crawley’s chest fluttered in a way unbecoming of a demon, he was vaguely aware that he should be feeling superior at the angel’s gullibility. He’d never been good at doing what he should be doing.

"The funny thing is," said Crawley giddy on the excitement of a moral quandary "I keep wondering whether the apple thing wasn't the right thing to do, as well.” Creating space for choice and the possibility of informed consent didn’t seem at all bad in his eyes, it created freedom, meaning, and capacity for true goodness as much as badness: “A demon can get into real trouble, doing the right thing."

He nudged the angel. "Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? Funny if I did the good thing and you did the bad one, eh?"

The angel chuckled with him for a second before the whole thought was processed “No!” came the panicked response: “It wouldn't be funny at all!”

No," he said, sobering up, "I suppose not." Retribution was never much fun when you were the one on the receiving end.

As the first raindrops bruised the first flowers, the angel next to him raised a wing to cover Crawleys head from the downpour. He instinctively shuffled closer to the shelter provided, the warmth of the gesture threatening to intoxicate his better judgement again. In the distance, the retreat figures of Adam and Eve slashed at a Lion with a flaming sword.

“Its Aziraphale by the way,” said the angel.

“Whats an Aziraphale?”

“Me, that's my name”

“Nice to meet you Aziraphale” Crawley’s grin was met with a fellow warm smile.

A joyful feeling crept over him, almost distracting him from the peace that had started to set into his bones in this form. It was all a rather funny sensation but not one he wanted to lose. It felt like being.

_Do I want to be him in some bodily way, or be near him,_ he finally had his answer, _both._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The Dips and The Rose Gardens are two of the oldest cruising grounds in London. Cruising grounds are public open-air areas where men who sleep with men go to meet other men for sex. They are areas of importance/culturally significant in the current and historic queer communities of London. The Dips at this moment in time (2019) are unsafe due to multiple extremely violent homophobic hate crimes (this is occurring at a time we are seeing a vast increase in anti-LGBT violence in London) please do not go to the Dips for your own safety (and also out of respect for the men that do use the area as a cruising ground if you are not a male-aligned person looking for sex with men).


	2. Growing pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: reference to child murder (both by G_d and humans - Noah's arc and Moses storylines)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really see Crowley and Aziraphale as Jewish interpretations of angels and demons, in comparison to the other angels and demons of good omens who are more aligned to Christian interpretations. So in this chapter, I have tried to hint towards this with the bearing witness themes that are present in many modern-day Jewish narratives

**Mesopotamia - 3004 BC**

The benefit of the bodies of an angel and a demon is that they are much hardier than your average human, this significantly reduces the chances of an accidental discorporation and the masses of paperwork this generates. However, on this occasion, the paperwork would have been a lesser weight on their immortal souls.

Crawley searched through the bemused crowd for the person he had been traveling for days to find. Compared to the rest of the journey this last bit was easy, a headful of familiar blonde hair stands out from the majority of the crowd as you would expect in a crowd of people in what would become known as Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey. Though his long head of fiery auburn hair was also distinct from the majority of the crowd so he was not one to judge.The huge boat and unruly menagerie of animals in front of Aziraphale also made the angel harder to miss.He strutted towards Aziraphale’s general direction, trying to make it seem like he just happened to have run across the other by coincidence rather than having sought him out again. So far the act seemed to have worked,the several times previous they had ‘just happened to bump into one another’ the Angel had seemed oblivious to the careful curation of the brief meeting.

He quickly mulled over how to strike up a conversation; ‘Fancy meeting you here’ seems a bit contrived as it was clear that those above were up to something so it was almost contractual for both of them to be present for such events. ‘What’s an angel like you doing in a place like this’ was just too cheesy, and he was sure could be used to better effect in a bar in the future.

“I feel like we have been here before” is the introduction he runs with, gesturing to the storm clouds gathering above and the man in the distance approaching a large lion, this time though with a large staff to guide it into a boat, rather than making the first kill on earth with a newly acquired and illicit burning sword.

“Hmmm" answers Aziraphale, his mind elsewhere and worry knitted on his brow.

He tries again, perhaps playing dumb will engage Aziraphale’s natural inclination to educate others on whatever has most recently engaged his interest; “What's all this about? Build a big boat and fill it with a traveling zoo?”

“From what I hear, G_d's a bit tetchy.” Aziraphale answers, causing Crawley’s eyebrows to shoot up his forehead, this was the closest the angel had ever gotten to being anything other than uncritically in awe of the almighty.

“She’s wiping out the human race. Big storm. Well not really the whole human race, just the locals. I don't believe the Almighty's upset with the Chinese. Or the Native Americans. Or the Australians.” Aziraphale bumblingly informed him of what was to come. Turns out the matter of genocide was what it took to get Aziraphale to be even minorly and indirectly critical of the Lord, he noted to himself.

“And God's not actually going to wipe out all the locals. I mean, Noah, up there, his family, and his sons, their wives, they're all going to be fine.” Aziraphale tried to justify, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it.

“But they're drowning everybody else? Not the kids? You can't kill kids.” Crowley stared around at the people he had been living with and come to know, the feeling of rising anger, and crushing helplessness leaving his stomach-churning.

“It's to rid the world of evil, to start again” Aziraphale explained.

“Oh yes, totally evil” Crowley spat venomously, gestured to a child carrying her baby sibling on her back, both laughing as they sprinted after the older child’s friends whoever weaving in between the grazing goats, “can see they are both pure evil, the little one definitely deserves to drown for all the evil they’ve committed before they are even old enough to walk.”

“Mass murder, that's more the kind of thing you'd expect my lot to do.” He lied, trying to swallow down the rising bile in his throat. God had always been cruel as far as he was concerned, and completely undeserving of her good reputation. This was nothing new; the world had never made sense to him, what seemed evil was good because of the deity doing it, and what seemed good was seen as bad just because he was doing it. It felt unwinnable and unfair. The people here were as damned as he was, but for them it was even worse for they only had the one chance; they didn’t come back after discorporation.

A strange feeling of kinship with the damned sprung up within him. Meanwhile, Aziraphale continued on with his attempt at distracting himself from the grim reality: “Yes, but when it's done, the Almighty's going to put up a new thing, called a ‘rain-bow’, as a promise not to drown everyone again.”

“How kind.” he snaps.

“You can't judge the Almighty, Crawley.” Aziraphale snaps back at him.

“Oh really? Just watch me” he nearly shouted, telling him that he couldn’t do something had always been a way to ensure he would do exactly that. He dramatically turned his face to the heavens and scowled while crossing his arms.

Aziraphale flinched at the anger in his voice, before either could say anything more the clouds broke above them and the first raindrops splattered onto his hair. There was no comforting wing raised to shelter him this time. They stood there like two statues as the people around them rushed to gather belongings and get undercover.

The rain continued to pour, soaking through their robes and hair, the long strands of red clung to Crawley’s face and neck like rivets of blood flowing from his crown.

The floodwaters started to rise quickly with the unending downpour. At first, it causes an annoyance to the locals as it soaks the rugs on the floor, flowing into their tents and houses as their sandals splash through the thin layer of water gradually building.

“I don’t want to see this” Crawley turned to Aziraphale, the ager he had been feeling dissipating at the sadness and helplessness etched across Aziraphale face.

“Neither do I” Aziraphale agreed. Neither made a move to leave.

“It’s the will of God, part of the ineffable and holy plan,” Aziraphale said feebly. It’s the only thing he can say without risking falling like the once-angel that stands beside him.

_I know, I hear you,_ thinks Crawley, the words Aziraphale would have said were heard in his bones; “but we can bear witness”.

Death had never really been his forte, there was so much more fun to be had with the messiness of life, death was so final and meaningless.

In answer, a shoulder nudged at his own before coming to rest comfortably alongside, their little fingers interlinking. It felt right. It had always felt right the ease and freedom with which Aziraphale touched others. The lightness and meaning with which Aziraphale touched, jostled and bumped against him starkly different from the forceful grips of handshakes with others, and rough friendly jostling of groups of friends. The gentleness Aziraphale's touch emanated seemed to entwine with his very being, soft, curved and tinged pink like the rest of the angel. A similar part of Crawley that he kept pushed down bloomed within him. Crawley squeezed it gently in return, fingertips dancing over knuckles while looking resolutely ahead.

Hand in hand at the destruction of these people’s world they stood united. Unable to act, both unable to voice their true feelings, it felt right to stand united and defiant, refusing to turn their gaze from the scene before them. Heaven and Hell on earth would bear witness so that when there were no mouths left to tell what had occurred the memory would not be gone, but enshrined within the eyes of eternal beings.

Over the day panic sets in around them as the floodwaters continue to rise, the family heirlooms put onto stools sink below the waterline. The weak, elderly, and young whom had no family able to pick them up out of the water start to shake and fade with the cold of the water from above and below soaking them and dragging them downwards. The boat in the distance loomed darkly on the horizon, it’s doors unopening and silent to those crying for help as its base. A chorus of ‘Save us’, ‘Save me’, ‘save my child’, ‘take them if you won't take me’, ‘please open up’ were soon drowned out by the storm.

“Lovely chap, you can tell why heaven picked him, really cares for his fellow man” Crowley snarled, the anger rising in his chest again.

Aziraphale remained unanswering, what were tears and what was rain upon his face was impossible to distinguish from one another.

Those able to start to head to the mountains in the hope of finding higher ground, or shelter from the torrential downpour. “Come on angel” Crawley guided Aziraphale away from their vigil over the boat, “let’s go with them.” There would be no voices to hear by the boat now, even if the drumming of the rain was to stop.

The idea of using some demonic intervention to get the people out here onto the arc crosses his mind. He could easily sell it to Hell that he was ensuring the continuation of evil by thwarting God’s plans. The idea dies in his head as quickly as he can think the word thwarting. If he tries to save them, it becomes Aziraphale’s duty to thwart him, to ensure the deaths of those his Lord has condemned. Looking over at his angelic companion whose normally upright frame is uncharacteristically hunched and shaking with what others would have assumed was caused by the cold and damp, rather than crippling guilt. He can’t do it to him, he realised. He could not put Aziraphale in a position where he may have to kill others. He can’t even raise it as a possibility for discussion; he isn’t sure which would make the soft principality hate him more: forcing him to choose between not hurting people and God’s plans, or Crawley choosing to let others die to protect him. He bites on his forked tongue to keep it still in his treacherous mouth.

Reaching out he wraps an arm around Aziraphale’s shaking shoulders as they trudge up the steep slopes, it’s the only comfort he can offer either of them. The rain has turned the red dust of the landscape into watery mud, the slap of their sandals spray it up their legs and onto their soaked clothes. The red stands out starkest on Aziraphale’s pristine white clothes, looking like his lower half is soaked in blood.

The mountains provided no relief.

While the people they are traveling with rest under the shelter of the rocks the volume of water running down the mountain increases as the parched soil and hard rock cannot absorb any more. The roar of the water flowing down the sun-baked rock wasn’t enough to muffle the screams of the people it sweeps upon its terrible path. The wave hit them with a force that ripped both angel and devil off their feet, swirling them until they did not know down from up. By some miracle, was it his or Aziraphale’s he wonders, they resurface. The world seemed to move in slow motion, with no sound. Perhaps it was just inevitability that they had surfaced, he thought, at some point, they had to come to the surface and there was no particular time limit on as for people of their stock; breathing was an optional aesthetic.

“Crawley” his shocked mental ramblings are interrupted and the full force of the noise and cold, and rain beating against his face came sharply into focus.

“Crawley!!” Aziraphale shouted again. Crawley looked around, a few meters away barely lit by the light of the moon that was struggling to peak between the rainclouds he saw Aziraphale clinging onto a floating tree trunk that was spinning in the fast current: “grab hold, dear boy, grab hold.”

Crawley swam towards it, luckily for him, snakes have always been good swimmers. Gripping onto each other's wrists with one hand while the other clings to the trunk, their combined efforts pull him chest hight out of the water to cling helplessly to the floating wood. Both conveniently forget to let go of the other, numb hands holding tight as they drifted onwards.

The moon came and went, and returned again unseen behind the thick blanket of rain clouds that did not relent in their downpour. Still, they clung to the branch. Aziraphale’s hand had moved at some point from his wrist to entwine itself in Crawley’s hair, soothing and playing with the damp strands made dark by the rain. Comforting him against the fear of not knowing what was below his feet, fearing being sucked down into the dark by unseen forces. 40 days came and went, and finally, the rain stopped. They remained each other's only company and solace, sharing tales of the past thousand years to pass the time. When they ran out of stories of the past the conversation changed to their hopes for the future, and then to observations of their surroundings: “is that land ahead?...false alarm, it’s another log again”.They lost count of how many more days came and went before their feet touched damp but solid ground again.

They lay there in silence, enjoying the surety of knowing what lies beneath your feet, or rather their backs. The mud thick and stinking against them, sinking into their clothes and hair, they couldn’t bring themselves to resent it in their gladness to have soil back as a touchable feature within their lives.

“Can you hear it?” Crawley asked

Aziraphale listened “I can’t hear anything other than you?”

“Me neither.” Crawley replied mournfully “We haven’t heard another person speak in days, and now it is all over it is still silent. It’s gone, the language of Eden”

Aziraphale quietly contemplated this new reality.

“It’s just us now” his ears still fruitlessly searching for the familiar rise and fall of the language being spoken on lips far away.

“We will speak other languages” Aziraphale comforted.

“Who will we be in those languages?”

The angel didn’t have an answer to that.

As they parted ways Crawley couldn’t help but feel this was the end of something, as well as the beginning. A new language, a new Crawley. He wasn’t sure which parts of himself would come and which would remain in a watery grave with the people and language he had become on earth with.But as with all life; from the soil, water and decay grows something new: an uneasy friendship born from the time, memories and hopes shared starts to grow.

\----

**Cairo -** **1525 BC**

Aziraphale is knee-deep in water, a large stick is in his hand which he is using to poke at wicker basket that is stuck in the reeds. It would be much easier to miracle it out of its predicament, but it felt right to do this in person he thought. No sooner than the thought had passed through his head the basket magically freed itself and floated against the flow of the river towards him.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to do that” he says out loud in surprise as the basket comes to a halt in front of him

“I’m sure taking credit for others work is the eleventh commandment or something like that” comes a bemused vice behind him

“Crawley!” he spun around to see his old acquaintance, nearly falling over in the process and grabbing onto the stick to steady himself.

“Aziraphale” Crawley asks feigning seriousness “what _are_ you doing?”

“Oh, you know the usual, making sure everything goes to plan” his damp mood lifted by the new company.

“I see. Would that be the bit of the plan where you get eaten by crocodiles, or is she getting you to arrange every reed bed by hand now?” He gestured upwards, as if the she he was referring to wasn't obvious,

“Neither of those actually. I'm making sure this little chap gets to where he needs to go.”

“Little chap?” Crawley's eyes dart to the basket, “Aziraphale what exactly is in that?”

Aziraphale reached down and lifted the lid of the wicker basket which was still obediently following him on his stumbling journey to the shore. Inside lay a small baby rocked to sleep by the gently undulating river.

Aziraphale glimpses a pained expression quickly flicking across Crawley’s face, “I suppose you are here to stop him?”

“Stop him? Oh no quite the opposite my dear boy, I’m making sure he gets where he needs to be” he gestured in the direction of the royal palace.

“Oh?” Crawley seems perplexed.

“What are you here for? You’re not here to stop him are you?” Aziraphale instinctively pulls the basket closer to him, though he feels no real threat from Crawley.

“No. No, I’m here to do the same as you, make sure he gets to where he needs to be too” Crawley also nodded towards the royal palace while offering a hand to Aziraphale to help him out the Nile.

“That seems an odd task for your lot” Aziraphale heaved himself out of the water and turned to stand side by side with Crawley looking down at the sleeping infant still bobbing in the water at their feet, “He is going to free an enslaved people and lead them to safety.”

“He’s going to cause the downfall of an empire through removing their free labor, and deliver plague upon plague onto this city” Crawley replied.

“Ah, I guess it’s all a matter of perspective,” Aziraphale said as they look down at the baby between them.

They both stared down at the sleeping child as a sense of importance radiated from him.

“It’s all planned out for him isn’t it?” Aziraphale said to break the silence, though his choice of words didn’t help alleviate the mood settling over him. He wasn’t sure why this sentiment felt more foreboding than comforting. Both the divine and ineffable plans had always given him a distinct sense of comfort that comes from not having to overthink your actions too much when someone else far more reliable is in charge.

“Whatever happened to free will?” Crawley queried, always somehow able to ask the question Aziraphale was trying to avoid.

“I guess he can choose not to be who he is supposed to become. Though that would be rather troublesome for everyone enduring slavery, generations depending on him...” he trailed off as a slight feeling of panic rose within him “But he wouldn’t do that? Would he?”

Crawley puffed out his cheeks and answered with another question, “Will he ever know the choices he has to make if he never understands the choices that have already been made by others about his future?”

“I don't know.” Aziraphale answered truthfully, wishing to himself that Crawley wouldn't answer with more questions. He was unfortunately out of luck.

“Without space of informed choice free will just doesn’t make sense, does it?” Crawley asked.

It was all starting to make his head hurt. “I guess we better continue on” he deflected, gesturing to the sleeping infant.

He gently replaced the protective wicker lid on the basket, with an added blessing for good luck. He knelt to push the baby back out into the Nile when a helpful hand joined his.

“Together?”

“Yes together” Aziraphale agreed. With one joint push, the basket slowly swept away from them. They watched it float further and further away.

“I think he still gets the freedom of choice and free will.” Aziraphale answered now he’d had time to mull it over, “The choices made for him while unusual aren’t too different from the choices made for all babies.”

“How so?” Crawley looks like he hasn’t quite caught the train of thought that he is on yet

“He’s too young to even hold his own head up yet, it’s already been decided he is a he and his whole life will be bound to that idea. The same is true for all babies in this particular nation.” he explains “Yet, they still have freedom of choice as that’s the whole point of humans, they are who they are because of who they want to be, whether for good or for bad. Whereas, people like you and me, we are set in their ways right from the start.”

Crawley jerks his head in disagreement “None of that makes sense. If your whole life is decided for you off of some arbitrary feature, or random roll of the universal dice, which then set your whole life down a particular path, while you may get choices of what you want to do and who you want to be on that path. You still aren’t truly free as you never got the option at the start to choose which path you are on in the first place.”

“They do get to choose which path, as some do choose a different one.” Aziraphale counterpoints “Same as we do to some extent.”

“How do you mean?” Crawley continues to question and push, the same as always.

“Well take angels, for example, we are supposed to be etherial, sexless and genderless. You can see it in the way the other angels wear their human forms, like clothes you’ve borrowed for the day and just aren’t quite you. They wear their bodies but they don’t inhabit them.”

He paused to gather his thoughts before continuing.

“But this, me here right now, I like it, it's me, it who I choose to be. If I can choose this which is different from how I started and how I might be assumed to have been meant to be, then so can humans. It might be harder than having the paths all set out for you at the beginning but it is possible.”

“So you're saying he might grow up to be a she, as easily as he may grow up not to deliver God's chosen people, or choose between good and evil.”

“I think so.” He tries to sound confident, hoping sounding is the route to being.

They settle into silence, minds half on the confusing nature of existence, the other half watching out for any crocodiles or hippos that may need occult or divine intervention to direct them away from the basket floating down the river.

“Do you think we are thinking too much about the wrong choice?” Crawley’s unexpected breaking of silence makes him jump slightly.

“The wrong choice?” worry and confusion spark inside him at where this conversation might go.

“We are so preoccupied with his choices, and our choices, but why is God fixing it this way.” Crawley elaborates, “It will be years before the baby is grown enough to be able to fix anything, people will be born, live and die in slavery during that time. Are they not worth saving? What about all the other babies alive this morning that won’t be this evening because there was no wicker basket for them?”

“I don’t know, I guess its….” he struggles to find the right word.

“..ineffable?” comes the dry sarcasm.

“Right.” He hopes that puts an end to that.

“Don’t you ever wonder though?” Crawley queries again.

He inwardly groans, no such luck on the putting an end to that conversation.

“No, I don’t” The defensiveness making his voice squeak. A few deep breaths later he feels able to continue “I guess all we can do is what we can, to save one is better than none.”

Crawley looks dissatisfied, Aziraphale hopes the same emotion isn’t as obvious on his face. Being dissatisfied with the great plan when you are an angel can get you into a whole heap of trouble.

They sit in silence watching until the basket is out of sight. Later it is followed by the first of many tiny bodies.

“Why is it always kids” laments Crawley.

For once neither of them have an answer.


	3. Push and pull

**Golgotha- 22 AD**

The next time they meet three men are being murdered in front of them. Its senseless, pointless. A man killed for saying be nice to others, and yet heaven sits back happy for it to happen. The dying man is kinder than anything Crowley has seen from heaven.

Aziraphale looks concerned. His hand's fiddled with the hem of his white tunic, his short choppy hair even more unbrushed than was normal. Crowley’s long and well-kempt hair flows out of the side of his black loosely wrapped headscarf, apart from in colour and therefore cost it matched head covers worn by the women in the crowd, rather than the tightly wrapped head coverings of the men that Aziraphale was wearing, the only part of the angels outfit that was in fashion for this Millenium. For once Crowley gots no staring eyes, hushed whispering or mocking comments for his dress or eyes, for all eyes are firmly locked on the barbarism unfolding in front of them

They should rename Aziraphale the angel of death he thinks, they only ever seem to meet to observe heaven sanctioned murder these days.

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger have you?” his bitterness seeping into his words.

“Smirk? me?” Aziraphale has the audacity to sound surprised.

“Well it’s your lot who put him on there” Crowley bites back, “whispered in his ear, told him to stay when he asked for anything but this”.

“I’m not consulted on policy decisions Crawley”. A brief flash of sympathy for the moral turmoil the angel must be going through flickers through his mind but leaves as quickly as it came. The nervous fiddling that had previously endeared him to his adversary only sought to grate on his nerves today.

He interrupts before Aziraphale can get around to saying ineffability, “Oh I’ve changed it” he says trying for an air of nonchalance. He wasn’t in the mood for openness.

“Changed what?” asked Aziraphale.

“My name. Crawl-y” he grimaced at saying it “It just wasn't doing it for me anymore. A bit too squirm-at-your-feetish”. Already the name felt like the memory of someone else he didn’t quite want to remember.

“Well, you were a snake” Aziraphale quips back, “So what is it now mephistopheles? Asmodeus?”

_What does that mean?_ he wonders, storing that sentence away for future over-evaluation. Asmodeus, the demon of lust who teaches others about themselves. Mephistopheles, who serves the already damned. _What does that mean he thinks about me_?.

He pushed the over-analyzing to the back of his mind, best to answer the question asked before Aziraphale realised a throwaway sentence could cause a complete internal meltdown.

“Crowley. I’m Crowley now” It had taken him longer to come up with than he wanted to admit. He wanted to keep it similar, after all he was the same person as he had always been, but the old name needed to be shed as the person underneath it had outgrown it. Crawley was a good name for a snake, but he had walked and talked on two legs with this face for it to fit. The process of becoming yourself takes time, but he was starting to feel he was arriving.

The conversation moves back to the dying man in front of them.

“I showed him all the kingdoms of the world” Crowley adding an explanation at the request of a quirked eyebrow;“ He’s a carpenter from galilee: His travel opportunities are limited, was doing him a favour really.” It was a half-hearted tempting. Another ‘go and cause trouble, do some tempting’ orders from below situation, that he’d had little enthusiasm for. However, never one to waste the opportunity of a ‘do as many demonic miracles as you want’ blank cheque, he’d decided to have several holidays. Holidays that didn’t involve having to ride a horse to and from. Taking along a radical Jewish socialist who believed in direct action was just an added bonus. Though it had proved not quite as much of a riot as he had hoped.

“I did try to talk some sense into him” he admits “he was starving himself because he thought that’s what your lot wanted. Wouldn’t even have a drink or a piece of bread. What a waste, imagine it, the only holiday you get in your 30 years of life and you’re on a diet for the whole of it!”

Before Aziraphale could interrupt him to tell him that taking the son of god on holiday and giving him a sandwich is wrong he plows on: “How can heaven call itself the side of good when it commits genocide, lets people live and die in slavery, and then starves and kills those who speak out about it?”

Aziraphale had clearly decided to ignore the blasphemy and sharply cut to the point, “I didn’t realise you were so fond of him from your sightseeing tour together. Didn’t have you down as the type that went for the whole love thy neighbor and speaking to the innate goodness in all humanity.”

“I liked how he played with the rules set out to keep you down and turned them on their head so you came out on top.” Crowley answered honestly the gusto of his anger slightly abating at Aziraphale not rising to his jabs: “If a debt collector takes your best coat, you give him all your clothes so he has to chase you around trying to clothe you like a mother trying to catch a toddler after a bath: brilliant! Or if a soldier forces you to carry his stuff, keep on carrying it until he is breaking the law by having you carry it further than legal or looks a fool chasing after you. It's a genius way to disrupt the system. Best of all it works.”

“I was more fond of the feeding of the five thousand myself,” said Aziraphale, instinctively trying to lighten the mood somewhat, although his heart didn’t seem to be really in it.

“Don’t you see” Crowley growled in frustration choosing to ignore the attempted derailing, “He understood people don’t start from the same place. All that stuff you said about their freedom to choose between good and evil is what makes them choosing to do good truly holy. That only works if you start everyone off equal, right? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born into money.”

“Ah” Aziraphale countered with the cheerful countenance of someone who knew the answer to the test they had just been set “that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have!”

Crowley felt his mouth drop with shock at the complete ridiculousness of the statement.

“That’s delusional” he snapped, his frustrated anger boiling over: “what’s the point in even talking to you if you refuse to see what's right in front of you”.

The world was not a fair place at all, not that this was news to him. Those who asked questions fell, while those who left people to suffer and refused to admit reality were bathed in heavenly love. The hypocrisy twisted his stomach, how could anyone think this was the right way for things to be, it never made sense to him no matter how much he thought about it and queried it. If there was one thing he hated it was a question without an answer or even an attempt at an answer.

“Forget it” He turned sharply to leave

“Crawley” Aziraphale spluttered, calling after the hastily retreating figure.

“Not my name” Crowley shouted over his shoulder, making sure to get out of earshot before Aziraphale could call the right name. 

He came to a stop alongside a shady brick wall, where he rested with his head in his hands. ‘ _Never get close to someone_ ’ he mentally reprimanded himself, ‘ _they will always disappoint you_ ’. Need and want always made a person vulnerable, he always tried to keep it a deeply hidden secret that was all his core seemed to be made of.

A feeling of helplessness gnawed away in his stomach, it was like being stuck clinging on to a tree with no say where the current would take you, a feeling he didn’t have to imagine, he knew it intimately. He hated it, hated the lack of control. Time to take some back he thought. A snap of his fingers and his long hair is gone, replaced by a shortly shorn cut.

The gnawing in his stomach diminished slightly I am in control, he muttered to himself, at least of something.

Time to get out of here, he felt like getting as far away as possible, to the edges of the empire and beyond. He’d heard from Caesar that Britannia was lush and green. Today felt like a good day to go and stir up resistance and trouble in the land that this empire he particularly hated today had its sights set upon.

**~*~**

**Rome - 41 AD**

The last forty years had been a tough one, the guilt that had been nibbling away under his skin for thousands of years had turned more into active chewing. Stop being a daft old bugger he told himself, guilt is only for those who have done something wrong when they were told to do right, he had been told to do right and had done it. Unfortunately logic did not state the hunger of the guilt-monster chomping away at him. However, wine and good food did seem to silence the beast for a short while, which is how he came to be in this particular public house where he had just seen a familiar shade of flaming red hair.

“Crawley? Crowley?” he quickly corrects himself,

“Well,” he stutters remembering their last conversation come argument. His stomach knots at the memory, he tries to power through with forced cheeriness “fancy running into you here”.

Crowley is hunched over his drink. The strain of the last 40 years that Aziraphale feels deep inside is also written in the tension of Crowley's body. The familiar warmth that he felt from their previous meetings is conspicuously missing, replaced by icy coolness. He desperately racks his brain for something to say, he has no idea how to approach a being that is supposed to revel in all things bad but was so affected by the death and misery of earth.

“Still a demon, then?” the question slips from his lips before his brain can catch up. Jesus had died to forgive all sins, but he would have heard of it by now if that forgiveness stretched beyond the realm of humans.

“What sort of stupid question is that? Still a demon? What else am I going to be an Aardvark” Crowley hissed as he spun around to face him.

_At least he is looking at me_ now Aziraphale thinks, take the small victories when they come.

“Salutaria” he says, raising his glass to his old friend. A problem ignored with relentless cheerfulness is a problem solved he thinks.

He runs his eyes over Crowley’s outfit, the gold leaves in his hair that should only be worn for ceremonial purposes, the Celtic pin on robes that were desperately trying to look like a toga but failing to convince anyone.

“In Rome long?” He asks, already knowing the answer from the visitor-trying-and-failing- to-look-local appearance Crowley was strongly channeling.

“Nipped in for a quick temptation. You?” the response isn’t warm, but decidedly less frosty than before.

“I thought I'd try Petronius’ new restaurant. I heard he does remarkable things to oysters!”

“I've never eaten an oyster.” comes the surprising admission.

“Oh let me tempt you to..” he pauses for dramatic effect: “Oh no, that's your job isn't it?” He hopes this will bring them back into their usual repertoire; fording the gulf between them by nudging Crowley towards what he does best.

Crowley looks him up and down as if reconsidering the whole of him. Aziraphale forgets to breath waiting to see which way the chips will fall. A grin breaks out on the demon’s face, and a warm wash of relief flows over Aziraphale. It felt like an invisible wall between them had just crumbled into dust.

“I thought that shellfish were forbidden” comes the teasing response.

_Always fishing for trouble_ Aziraphale thinks and answers with a cheeky wiggle of his eyebrows: “Not any longer”

“How so? God changed her mind and said you know what, my mistake, help yourself to a seafood buffet?”

“Not exactly” Aziraphale was rather proud of himself for having thought this one through himself: “They were forbidden in preparation for the son of God, but the son of God has come and been. So to me, or anyone of sound mind, it would clearly be blasphemous to stick to those rules, it would be saying he wasn't the son of God.”

“Blasphemous eh? Well better go get you some to eat quickly. Just to be sure” Crowley warmly teased, as stood for them to leave, “Wouldn’t want you accidentally blaspheming.”

“You know me, always one to make sure I am as far away from blasphemy as my appetite can take me.” He hops to his feet, feeling a weight lift from him that he hadn’t been aware he was carrying.

“We call that gluttony where I’m from” Crowley, gestured for Aziraphale to lead the way.

“Get behind me foul beast” Aziraphale jokes, giving Crowley his most angelic smile as he led the way into the busy streets of Rome. A fond eye roll is his reward.

“I don’t have much choice in that as you’re the one that knows where this restaurant is” Crowley fussed, trying to act as if he wasn’t enjoying the view of Aziraphale.

“Perhaps we could get some but take them elsewhere to eat” Aziraphale suggests, oblivious to Croweys wandering eyes and choosing to ignore his mock protests as they walk along the warm stone streets, “it would be nice to have some time to talk more freely.”

Crowley doesn’t mention that they can talk freely anywhere being the only two beings on earth who still speak the language of Eden. Aziraphale is thankful for the tactical silence.

Their discussion meanders jauntily through the past 40 years as they walk to the restaurant and onwards to a large garden cut into the side of the hill, overlooking the Colosseum, temples and busy streets. They sit with their backs to the sprawling city behind them, facing a spring-fed water feature in the cool shade of a pinus pinea tree. Neither are in any rush and the scorching heat of the day turns to the gentle warmth of the night.

“Have you tried any of the other earthly delights that are now back on the table?” Crowley asks, his shit-stirring grin appearing again.

Aziraphale’s back is resting against the tree trunk, the oysters carefully arranged on a cloth on his lap, Crowley is sprawled out next to him, long arms and legs going in all directions.

Cracking open another oyster Aziraphale mentally runs through the list of new things on offer. If he was to be honest his exploration hadn’t taken him much further than his stomach: “I don’t think a tattoo would suit me” he says absentmindedly rubbing his fingers over his own skin mirroring where Crowley’s tattoo was located, before suddenly remembering “Oh! But this is made out of two materials, feel how soft it is!” He offers the sleeve of his tunic to Crowley to feel.

Crowley strokes over the material before grasping his hand gently but firmly, “Lay down with me Angel”

Aziraphale allows himself to be pulled down next to Crowley, so he is facing downwards while Crowley gazes upon him. The insinuation behind the words making his cheeks flush pink, but he doesn’t break his gaze away from the man beneath him.

“You know we can’t, there are some lines that just can’t be crossed” Aziraphale feels his heartache with every syllable.

“Just because you can’t cross a line doesn’t mean you can’t dance along it,” Crowley says, tracing patterns upon Aziraphale’s arm with his fingertips.

Aziraphale swallows thickly but doesn’t move his arm away, his eyes following the patterns of Crowley’s touch as his thoughts wander. The gentle touch feels almost hypnotic as he gazes at the brief points of contact, the fingertips on his arm, their ankles just touching as the lights of Rome sprawl out as if it is the floor their sandals treat upon.

“What you thinking about” Crowley breaks the silence between them, his hand leaving Aziraphale’s arm to gently tip his chin upwards until their eyes met.

“I was thinking about sandals”

“Sandals?” Crowley asks incredulously.

“You. Me. Us. It feels like a comfy pair of sandals you slip into at the end of a long day.”

Crowley makes a face at the analogy but lets it go.

“Can I ask you something?” Aziraphale queries.

Crowley murmurs his agreement.

“It’s something that has been playing on my mind. I don't quite make sense in this culture, it feels like trying to force yourself into shoes that don’t fit, they pinch in all the wrong places.” The socially acceptable way to be masculine is a way of being that is dominant, active and degrades those it is intimate with but is itself spared.The other role of being is feminine and receptive but degraded by its love for masculinity, it fits no better. The gentle affection he finds so easy with others like him, like Crowley, has no place in Rome.

“I like this form” he continues “and could never change from it, I feel we are akin to one another in that respect, but that us being here like this doesn’t clash with the being of the other, nor lessen or change the other.”

His being feels like a warm steady rhythm in the background, unchanging and unwavering regardless of where and whom he was with. He feels it echoing back to him in the warmth of Crowley’s body and beating heart he can feel under his hand. “What I like in you also exists in myself”

“I know angel,” Crowley says words thick with meaning “That feeling of trying to make yourself intelligible to those around you, and trying to match it up as closely as possible with who you are, but it just not making much sense around here, I get it too.”

“You make sense to me.” Aziraphale whispers

“And you to me” Crowley adds.

They lay in silence watching each other and the stars come out in the sky above them, comfortably drifting off into their own thoughts.


	4. Of Knights and Men

1401 AD, Bordeaux.

Crowley quietly slipped through the night, darting between tents. The dark black of his chainmail helped hide him from prying eyes that may glance up from campfires or through tent entrances that had yet to be laced tightly shut. He arrived at a jousting tent less brightly coloured than the others, it was a pale cream with light blue stripes running down the side. After a quick look both ways he quietly slipped through the front flap.

“It’s just me” he reassured Aziraphale who had spun around at the sound, light from a candle dancing off of his silver armour.

Aziraphale’s face softened into a warm smile “I expected we would run into each other since I saw your name listed as a competitor”

“Thought I should run into you in person before I did it with a lance”

“Or I you” Aziraphale countered. While not a man who looked like a fierce competitor he was renowned for his ability to miraculously escape the blows of his opponent's lances, who would often find themselves unexpectedly falling from their horses to land, very gently, on the ground. It had earned him a reputation as a skilled knight, which he endured for the sake of the grand dinners, favours and excuses to visit the warmer, if depleted, regions of England to catch up with old friends.

Crowley, who hated spending any more time on a horse than necessary was also known to unseat his opponents on the first blow, raised to the proverbial gauntlet: “I guess we will find out when we meet at the tilt. Though you are currently dressed for a pre-match” he added teasingly.

“Ah!” Aziraphale started as his attention was drawn to the armour he had all but forgotten he was still wearing “ I sat down for a quick look this tome sent from Sir henry Percy before undressing and I completely lost track of the time.”

Aziraphale started to unstrap the leather holding the vambrance to his forearm, but struggled to reach the straps of the pouldron on his shoulders. He opened his mouth to call for the young man he had brought along as an apprentice.

“Your servant went to sleep hours ago, let me” Crowley offered, stepping forward to help Aziraphale remove the armour.

“Oh you don’t have to, I'm sure I can keep it on until I find someone’s stable hand or servant to help.”

“There is enough hardness in the world,” Crowley tapped lightly on the armoured breastplate, “Let's not keep ourselves shrouded in it longer than we must.”

Aziraphale relented without any pretence at protest: “Thank you.” He turned his side to Crowley trustingly, bearing the leather straps that held his armour in place.

Crowley smiled, the lack of pretence of protest reminding him of how their relationship had grown over the millennia to this comfy stage. With care and consideration, the hard shapes of cold metal were removed one by one, and chain mail slipped off until the soft plains of Aziraphale’s doublet and underclothes were fully revealed.

“Now you are the one overdressed” Aziraphale’s hands ghosted over Crowley's black chainmail.

“Can’t have that, can we?” Crowley lifted his arms up so that Aziraphale could return the favour and remove his last layer of protection.

“I do like you in this, it reminds me of your snake form,” Aziraphale thoughtfully thumbed over the chainmail vest now in his hands.

“But reclaimed onto your true self” he quickly added aware of Crowley’s feelings towards his past form “It's a nod to the past selves that have grown into you now”

“I’m still the same person I was then, I enjoy parts of the snake aesthetic just not being” Crowley smiled softly, not quite ready to say what it meant to him that Aziraphale embraced all parts of him: past and present.

He noticed Aziraphale opening his mouth to say more, he didn’t feel he could take any more kind words so moved to distract. His hands reached to the lacing of Aziraphale's doublet, tied shut as the base of his throat.

“Anymore, angel?”

“Probably for the best not to” Aziraphales hands, came up to gently rest over his, his thumb stroking softly in small motions.

They rest in the moment breathing in the breath of the other. Crowley longed to close the small gap between them, but if the past centuries have taught him anything it's courtly love, and so he contends to watch from not so afar.

“These centuries have changed us” Aziraphale is the one who breaks the silent moment stretching between the two of them.

“I do like the newer Mr Chivalry, more than Mr inequality-is-good-as-the-lower-you-start-the-more-opportunities-there-are-to-turn-down-sin” Crowley jokes, his humour kicking in as a last defence against the rawness of the moment. He doesn’t want to remember the sickness, wars and death of the past 100 years that has led to Aziraphale’s changed perspective.

“Me too.” Aziraphale refuses to let the joke take away from the sincerity of the conversation, but accepts the unspoken request to not cloud the evening with memories of the too recent past.

“I better get going.” Crowley breaks away, unable to bare himself any longer but regretting the decision as soon as the moment is lost.

“Yes, it is getting late.” Aziraphale agrees reluctantly.

As Crowley reaches the tent flat to slip out into the night, Aziraphale calls from behind: “Though I do have some local wine that I might need a hand with enjoying.”

“Well only if you couldn’t manage it on your own?” He turns perhaps too eagerly from the exit.

“It has a very tight cork, couldn’t possibly open it on my own.” Aziraphale picks up an indistinct bottle at random from a small wooden chest of bottles.

Crowley grins, taking the offered bottle from Aziraphale’s hands. He quickly and easily pops the cork while Aziraphale retrieves two goblets from his trunk.

Their conversation wanders on long into the night over several bottles of wine. They reminisce of the first time they had met as knights in armour in the newly formed Kingdom of Wessex. The argument they’d had all those hundreds of years ago, had ended long before the kingdom itself ceased.

Aziraphale refused to admit it, but from what Crowley had seen they had both stopped working as hard as they had been in damp places, while still doing the bare minimum of blessing, miracles and temptations they could get away with. They fell into a larger steady rhythm of push and pull, Crowley would suggest something, Aziraphale would huff and puff about it in indignation but would then come to his alleged own conclusion to quietly start to do that same as Crowley had initially suggested, except, of course, this was his own idea, not Crowley’s.

That push and pull had come to be more pull than push with each passing age, leading them to this long night of cheer and warmth under cloth light by candlelight, devoid of their usual armour. Slowly light rose over the horizon, leading them out from the dark of the night to a new day and age.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feed my confidence with comments.


	5. Doubt truth to be a liar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long to update, now that I am furloughed updates should happen a lot quicker.

**London, 1609 AD**

Over the years they fall into a reliable rhythm of meeting, the earlier pattern of Crowley seeking Aziraphale out, comfortably reforms into equally seeking and finding from both sides. There are more lunch dates than cataclysmic disasters these days, which is just the way he likes it.

Their regular haunts move further from the Middle East, to Africa, to Europe. Aziraphale is glad for a reprieve from the heat, Crowley says he is less enamoured with the damp but he enjoys the greenery it brings with it ,even if he won't admit it.

This time they are meeting in the Globe theatre.

Aziraphale smiles warmly as Crowley joins him.

“Your hair was long when we first met” he comments warmly on the thick waves of well-groomed fiery hair Crowley is sporting. He doesn’t comment on the goatee, the less said about that the better.It always fascinates him, every time he sees Crowley there is a new hairstyle. From the long plaited hair of their youth, to tight curls, to tight braids, to bowl cuts, and now back to flowing locks.While the world spins madly on around them Crowley controlled the small piece of the world he had total control of, the shockingly red hair upon his head. For himself, it had always been the opposite.

“And you are the same as always” Crowley commented, returning the warm smile to show no malice behind the observation.

For Aziraphale the world turned too fast, the comforting reliability of his own blonde fluffy curls in his reflection remaining the one constant he could rely upon. It felt like he needed it more so nowadays than he had in the past. The comfortable warmth of Crowley’s shoulder seeping through into his as they stood closer than needed in the otherwise empty Globe. Their whole world was changing as the agreement to job share was reached, yet it felt remarkably the same.

The details of the new arrangement were thrashed out between them. A bit of tempting from him alongside his divine intervention, and an occasional holy miracle fro Crowley when he was on hell’s business. The same results but half the amount of work required. It was a stroke of genius, though whether holy on unholy genius he couldn’t quite tell.

“Toss you for it” Crowley asked cheekily, the tips of his tongue cheekily poking out between his teeth a clear tell that he had chosen the words carefully for the insinuation.

“A coin flip will do my dear” Aziraphale plays the game back, it’s all talk and no trousers, or rather talk with trousers firmly on. He can feel a slight blush rising on his cheeks which he steadfastly ignores. He was never quite sure what to do in these situations, if he went with the insinuations would he be met with disgust and rejection, for what could a demon like Crowley truly see in an angle like him? Perhaps though, it would be gratefully received, but that was even more scary than rejection. Would he just be another waif led to destitution by nothing more than a devilish smile and flicking tongue?

Crowley broke him out of his anxiety spiral, having found a coin on his person: “Heads or tails?”

“Heads” Aziraphale says firmly, best to stay away from siding with things with tails, like snakes he reasoned.

Crowley flips the coin.

‘Tails I am afraid!” Crowley grins wickedly, “You’re going to Scotland.”

Aziraphale politely declined to note that Crowley never said whether heads meant going to Scotland or staying at home before the toss. It was reassuring to know when he was being played, a feeling so distinct from how he felt about the rest of their interactions it couldn’t help but cement his belief in their partnership not being a trick.

Crowley left shortly after the coin toss. Aziraphale couldn’t tell whether the quick exit was due to him being driven away by his hatred of Shakespeare’s serious plays, or eagerness to do a favour for Aziraphale in making the play a success, or perhaps he was just happy to leave now he had gotten what he had come for?

Aziraphale tried to pay attention to the actors on the stage, but his concentration wavered.

The thoughts of what he would have to do, the lines he would have to cross bubbling to the front of this mind. He was an angel, agreeing to do the devil’s work on behalf of another. This was not something he could come back from, a line he could not go back on once crossed, he would be sullied forever. The image of Crowley flashed across his mind at that last thought. Was Crowley sullied? It wasn’t a word he could ever find in himself to describe his companion with, hurt and scarred perhaps, but not tainted, the bright core of Crowley shone through no matter how much he draped it in black fabric. It was this inner kindness that stopped him from doubting Crowley too much when his mind conjured up the worst scenarios of tricks and temptations that could be being played on him.Crowley had been doing the devil's work for longer than they had known each other. Yet if Aziraphale was truly and deeply honest about his own feelings, he could not find a bad word to say about Crowley. The same would be true for himself he reasoned, one act would not undo who he was. Perhaps it was a line he had already crossed by finding nothing bad to be said about a demon, and now it was just quibbling over the minor details.

The action on stage broke him out of his contemplation, the words echoing the struggle within himself.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.”

These words stretched down deep into his heart. With newfound resolve, he found himself free to enjoy the play. He wasn’t doing the devil's work, he was helping out a friend in need and the world would stay balanced between little acts of good and bad, with Crowley covering some of his tasks. Perhaps the words on stage that so accurately reflected his inner turmoil it could even be a sign from a higher authority to follow his heart, which these days he found was frequently becoming a path straight to Crowley.


End file.
